I would think that Scrooge McDuck falls into this category as well.
Nit: A Navy Captain is an O-6
True, but a Navy Lieutenant is an O-3. He had the apartment, corvette, and Boeing Steerman at the beginning of the series, when he was still a Lieutenant.
A Family Affair – Bill Davis, a successful engineering consultant, seemed to have sufficient chops to afford his nicely furnished Manhattan apartment, Mr. French, and Cissy’s hairbands.
On Gilmore Girls, Luke lives well below his means. Lorelai, though, probably doesn’t. Even if she’s been established for years, I find it hard to believe that a single mother with a decent, but not particularly impressive job would be able to buy the house she does and eat out every meal. The writers figured out a good solution, though. Just give everyone else lots and lots of money.
On Grey’s Anatomy, one of the McDoctors (McDreamy?) lives in a mobile home, at least in the first season (the only one I’ve seen), which I think is probably well within his means.
On CSI, Sara Sidle’s apartment looks like a studio - you can see part of what looks like a bed in the living room in an episode, but at the end of last season they showed her and Grissom in what looked like a woman’s bedroom - maybe she moved or they moved in together (since the TPTB seemed to have made their hinted-at relationship cannon now). They’ve showed Grissom’s townhouse before - he is hitting 50 and doesn’t seem to have had anyone but himself to spend money on for most of his life and he works 24/7.
The Beverly Hillbillies certainly lived within their means. Maybe a bit spartanly since they really didn’t have the concept of extreme wealth and preferred to live as simply as they could, wearing the same clothes, driving the same old truck, and with Granny still making lye soap and moonshine.
Maybe she got some kind of support from one or more of the childrens’ fathers?
I just wanted to say…I don’t know you, but I love you a little bit for knowing so much about Mama’s Family. 
At the beginning of the 3rd season (The Search, pt. 1); Sisko brings his collection from Earth because the space station is beginning to feel like home. I don’t think we hear much about it afterwards.
One of the things I liked about I Love Lucy was that Ethel would be seen in the same dresses over and over (I especially remember that one with the broad rick-rack trim around the top), like a woman in her situation would wear, rather than a new outfit every week.
Nitpick - I believe that she actually owned that gallery, though I’m not sure that improves her potential day-to-day financial position.
Did they ever clarify what happened to the gallery after she died? Did Buffy sell it to cover some expenses?
The characters whose homes we saw on WKRP in Cincinnati seemed to live within their means.
If Jennifer really was the best-paid employee at the station, then her apartment suited her income. True, it was an elegant apartment, and the living/dining area was a good size, but the kitchen was small. We never see the bedroom, but we hear about it (not them), so I’d assume Jennifer has a one-bedroom apartment. Nicer than average, perhaps, but still–a one-bedroom apartment.
We saw Johnny Fever’s place once or twice. It was a bachelor apartment; Johnny slept on a pullout couch.
Les Nessman lived either next to or above his landlady–maybe he rented the top floor of a house? The few times we saw it, it didn’t seem to be much; certainly not what you’d expect the five-time winner of the Buckeye News Hawk Award to have.
Herb Tarlek and his family lived in a fairly average middle-class house. Remember their stint on the show Real Families? Herb was a poor salesman, but he was good enough to keep his job. So he must have sold enough advertising to afford the mortgage on such a house. But he still couldn’t afford a Cordoba.
Mama Carlson lived in a large house with a servant. But she was also the head of Carlson Industries, and we are led to understand that Carlson Industries controls a number of businesses and investments that would allow Mama Carlson to afford such a place.
I read an interview with Lucille Ball recently where she talks about that very thing. She wanted to be like a lot of the housewives who watched her show, without the new clothes all the time.
The brothers in Supernatural wear the same things over and over, too. Some wonderfully crazed fan (bless her heart) has devised pie charts calculating the frequency and probability of each of their garments being worn, and she’s calculated how much it must cost them to do their laundry and how often they need to do it. Yeah, yikes.
But they live out of their car, and they pay for all their cheap motels, gas, meals, and occasional clothing purchase (for disguises, not wardrobe additions) by hustling pool and perpetrating credit card scams. Surely, somewhere, some other crazed fan has calculated how much they need to rake in via fraudulent means to be able to afford their lifestyle…
I don’t think she gave that interview recently. She died in 1989.
I think she read it recently.
Dead people can’t read, either.
Yeah, I knew that much. What I was questioning was his collection’s noteworthiness when it was maybe mentioned three times in the entire series.